(Business 2.0) – What is it, you ask? A fine question. And a popular one too, as evidenced by the fact that every time I emerged from my icy-black 2004 Crossfire, some goggling person was planted just beyond the sweep of the driver's door, waiting to pose exactly that. The not-clever answer--which is usually what they got--is that it's the first true sports car from Chrysler, an automaker better known as the mother of the minivan. A more complete response to the same question would be that the Crossfire is an errant Mercedes, a Borg-like assimilation of German performance and refinement inside an affordable retro Chrysler skin. But who wants to have that discussion in a parking lot?

Five years ago, when Mercedes's parent company and Chrysler merged to form DaimlerChrysler, it seemed to many an inexplicable move. And in fact, for the past half-decade, the marriage has been a mostly barren one. Back in 2001, however, the rumblings of a little something appeared at the Detroit auto show: a quirky two-seater concept car, which resembled the unholy union of a Mercedes SL500 and a Gremlin. Audiences loved it. Now, two years of gestation later, it's here. And remarkably unchanged too, with the gill air louvers of the Mercedes, a chopped and rounded tail that seems hijacked from a boat, and a set of oversize, staggered wheels (19 inches in the back, 18 inches in the front), all of which render somewhat comically in pictures. But in person--viewed in a parking lot, let's say--these make for a startlingly handsome car.

But that's the skin. What's really interesting about the Crossfire is the subcutaneous stuff, which brings us back to that merger. All such unions are filigreed with natterings about "combined efficiencies" and "synergistic opportunities" and the like, most of which go wonderfully unrealized. But several years ago, with the concurrent discoveries that a) Chrysler had a concept car that was wowing the public, and b) Mercedes had a model, the SLK Roadster, that was due for major upgrading, some very clever suit decided that A plus B equals $. Thus the hurry-up-and-go nod to the Crossfire concept based on the SLK platform, which is to be retired when the SLK is redesigned in 2005. Basically, the company took the mechanicals of the $45,000 SLK, slipped them beneath a dramatic new shell, stuck a Chrysler badge on it, and is selling the experiment for the bargain price of $34,495.

Indeed, some 40 percent of the technology and mechanicals in the Crossfire are lifted directly from Mercedes--everything from the supercharged V-6 engine to the power train, brakes, and suspension. Even the little turn-signal wand on the wrong side of the steering column is shared with its corporate cousin, the SLK. (The Crossfire is in fact made in Germany.) Perhaps not surprisingly, this Chrysler drives more like a Mercedes than any domestic set of wheels you're ever likely to own. Although it lacks the oomph of the SLK (the Crossfire claims a civilized 215 horses, compared with as many as 350 in the Benz), the body is a good deal more rigid, and the car holds better into and out of turns, with nary a degree of torsion. Because the aerodynamics are markedly bolder, Chrysler added a spoiler; it deploys at about 55 mph with an aeronautical whir that drivers will find either slightly annoying or totally awesome, depending mostly on their age. Either way, the spoiler does dramatically help the car's short, fat tail stay planted, even at speeds below the Crossfire's max of, ahem, 155 mph. And other than the spoiler whir, the cabin is remarkably, blissfully quiet--again, credit the Germans.

Inside, the cabin is clean, if not quite up to European snuff just yet. A broad center swipe of "metal" defines the cockpit, and if you aren't clinically dead, you just might notice that said metal is silvered plastic. Still, the gauges and layout are unfussy, the leather seats give good support, and though the cockpit space is not grand, Chrysler makes the best of it, with little nets and nice cubbies of storage scattered throughout. These don't add up to much--you can probably cram a light lunch and a paperback book into the spaces--but hey, at least they tried. Similarly, Chrysler acknowledges the laughable roominess of the Crossfire's "cargo area" by offering a custom three-piece set of luggage that, Tetris-like, drops efficiently into the almost useless space. I didn't test the Chrysler luggage, though I can say that a 65-pound black labrador fits in there nicely. With coaxing.

The Crossfire is almost certainly a second car for whoever purchases it, so cargo space be damned. And since the company is producing only about 20,000 of them a year, it's obvious that the model is intended mostly as a bit of exotic rebranding for a somewhat staid, family-centric badge. (Blame Celine Dion for that.) Not that corporate machinations really matter to anyone who buys a Crossfire. What does matter is that they've grabbed a set of wheels that looks, drives, and feels like something only the well-heeled might own. Which brings us back to the original question. Somehow, given the pizzazz of this vehicle, it feels wrong to identify the Crossfire merely as "a Chrysler." So when they ask what it is--and they will--just tell them it's a steal.

John Tayman is a contributing writer for Business 2.0.